What is information layering?

Information layering is a concept in personal epistemology: Good hierarchies let people see the big picture first and drill into detail on demand.

Example: A 200-page technical architecture document sits unread on a shared drive. Nobody has time. Now restructure it: a one-paragraph executive summary at the top, five section headings with two-sentence abstracts, and the full detail behind each heading. The same information, but now a VP reads the summary in 30 seconds, a tech lead reads the section they own in 5 minutes, and an engineer drills into the appendix for implementation specs. Nothing was removed. The hierarchy decided what gets seen first.

This concept is part of Phase 14 (Hierarchy and Nesting) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for hierarchy and nesting.